Tibetan / Vajrayana

Vajrayana Buddhism is most closely associated with Tibet and can be characterized by the figure of the siddha, the master whose spiritual realization is so profound that he or she has power over the phenomenal world, and in whom the profundity and vastness of absolute truth is fully and completely manifested. Many of our most well-known authors come from this tradition of Tibetan Buddhism .

[Note: The tags for the various schools are not definitive as many books span multiple traditions, etc. They are meant to use as a starting point for exploring this collection.]

Fear and Fearlessness as a Direct Path of Awakening

Fear is something that's such a part of our lives that it doesn't seem it would be possible to live without it. This book disputes that claim in a powerful way. Gaylon Ferguson presents traditional Buddhist teachings to show that… Read More

A Commentary on Karma Chagme's Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen

This book grows out of an oral teaching that Khenchen Thrangu gave in Crestone, Colorado, on Karma Chagme's text Meaningful to Behold: The Essential Instructions of the Compassionate One on the Union of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. Thrangu Rinpoche explains in… Read More

An Explanation of the Seven-Line Prayer to Guru Padmasambhava

The text called the “Seven-Line Prayer” is said to contain the most sacred and important teachings of the Nyingma school and is recited daily by many Tibetan Buddhists. White Lotus unlocks the secret of the prayer and explains its… Read More

Young practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism from Asian and Western cultures have similar questions and concerns, such as the conflicts between traditional values and the influence of modern materialism. In four thoughtful commentaries, Thinley Norbu addresses contrasting cultural perspectives on topics… Read More

Where Zen and Tantra Meet

The Teacup and the Skullcup is made up of edited transcripts from two seminars that Chögyam Trungpa gave near the beginning of his North American teaching career in 1974—one in Barnet, Vermont, and one in Boston—called “Zen and Tantra.”… Read More

A Seven-Step Method for Deepening Meditation Practice

In the late 1990s, shortly after arriving in the United States, it became clear to Dza Kilung Rinpoche that his Western students were unable to progress in meditation as well as his students had back in Asia—and he realized that… Read More

A Practical Guide to the Jhanas

The jhānas are eight progressive altered states of consciousness that can be identified with the aspect of the Buddha’s Eightfold Path called Right Concentration. Training in concentration leads to these states, each of which yields a deeper and subtler state… Read More

An Explanation of a Tibetan Classic on What Is Most Important

The urgency of spiritual practice has seldom been as simply and powerfully conveyed as it is in Padampa Sangye’s One Hundred Verses. This Tibetan Buddhist classic is an antidote to the tendency we all have to waste our precious human… Read More

Discovering a Lost Tradition

Until the early twentieth century, hardly any traces of the Tibetan tradition of Chinese Chan Buddhism, or Zen, remained. Then the discovery of a sealed cave in Dunhuang, full of manuscripts in various languages dating from the first millennium CE,… Read More

Profound Instructions on Dzogchen, the Great Perfection

This volume is a heartfelt, intimate presentation of the entire system of the Nyingma tradition from sutra to tantra to Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, and how through it, modern-day practitioners can succeed in attaining fully realized buddhahood. Inspiring stories of… Read More

What It Is, What It Isn't, Why It Matters

The Buddha’s teaching on karma (literally, “action”) is nothing other than his compassionate explanation of the way things are: our thoughts and actions determine our future, and therefore we ourselves are largely responsible for the way our lives unfold. Yet… Read More

Gesar's Magical Birth, Early Years, and Coronation as King

The epic of Gesar has been the national treasure of Tibet for almost a thousand years. An open canon of tales about a superhuman warrior-king, the epic is still a living oral tradition, included on UNESCO’s Representative List of the… Read More

The Luminous Wisdom of Jigme Phuntsok

What is true happiness? What is the cause of our suffering and dissatisfaction? And how can we live with the kindness and clarity of the Buddha in our own lives? This compact collection of teachings from Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche illuminates… Read More

Tibetan Tales of Karma

In this series of tales, a prince must capture and bring back to his country a zombie who is endowed with magical powers—but in order to succeed he must keep himself from speaking even one word to the zombie. The… Read More

A Powerful New Approach to Loving-Kindness Meditation

The unconditional love that we all long for can be experienced in the practice of loving-kindness. In this popular form of meditation, the love inherent to our own nature is gradually expanded until it embraces infinite beings. Tulku Thondup introduces… Read More